I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I had fun doing it. Hopefully a few of you will enjoy.

The Dining Philosophers by kaufman 2-27-02

Since the dawn of time, mathematicians have wrestled with the "Philosophers' Problem". Hey, could you pass me that knife? Hey, could you pass me that fork? Namely, what happens when you have a bunch of philosophers at the table who want to eat and think ... Knife is a bowl of cherries. I fork, therefore I yam. but you don't have sufficient silverware for everyone? Hey, could you pass me the sweet potatoes? Hey, could you pass me the cherries?

The Dining Philosophers #2 by kaufman 2-27-02

Hey, could you pass me that fork? As I give it to you, it passes out of my sensory realm and for all practical purposes ceases to exist. Now look what you've done. We have no silverware. Damn. Yo, Socrates! Could you pass over that bucket of fried chicken? Mmm, mmm. Finger-licking good. Bring it here, hemlock boy!

The Dining Philosophers #3 by kaufman 2-27-02

EUREKA! ... Pass me the SPORK! Huh? Look, a spork is a hybrid between a spoon and a fork. By combining utensils, we'll no longer have a silverware shortage, and we'll all be able to eat. So will you please pass me the spork? No can do. Not until you pass me your fife.

The Dining Philosophers #4 by kaufman 2-27-02

Hey Nietzsche, could you pass me that fork? Come on, Locke, let me use that spoon for a moment. Aha! A complete set. At last I can eat. Aha! A complete set. At last I can eat. What do you mean they cleared off the table half an hour ago? Dammit, this happens every meal.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

Would you believe that even though Computer Science was half of my major, I never actually studied the dining philosophers problem?

Nevertheless, I enjoyed your creative solutions and puns. Especially in the first part. Well done.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

My wife had that "Dining Philosophers" thing in one of her IT management classes and asked me to help since I had had philosophy and logic classes (and I know my way around the dinner table). My first thought was, "Let the philosophers starve! Why should we help these bozos?!"

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

The biggest philosophical problem of all, of course, is how to make money out of such an impractical field.

This one goes out to the one I love by andydougan 7-11-01

John Stuart Mill claimed in "Utilitarianism" that all action could be reduced to the pursuit of pleasure. But it was a revisionist version of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism, which had claimed that all pleasures were of equal worth. That's so. Mill held that intellectual pleasures were superior to merely sensual ones, and that "it is...better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied". Nevertheless, is it not demeaning to mankind to say that we have no nobler aim than personal pleasure? Well, it's been fun. I'd better get back to spitting in the Chicken Royales at Burger King. Okay, see you later. I've still got a few hours until my temping job in William Hague's willy-waashing shop starts.

Philospenia by andydougan 7-13-01

Mill said that everyone who had experienced both intellectual and sensual pleasures would prefer the former. Which is a sweeping statement for a start. Many's the student who retreats from academia to the familiar comforts of instant gratification. Mill realised this: "many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally... postpone them to the lower". But they would still be aware that pleasure of the mind is greater. All this smacks of intellectual snobbery. It would seem to me that Bentham's utilitarianism was too radical for Mill, hence his more acceptable version. By the way, I got the sack. Got caught spitting in the Chicken Royales. Now I clean up sick outside the Great Eastern Hotel. Yeah, I've got a new job too... Hey there big boy! You lookin' for a prime piece of ass?

This looks like a good place for this...

CC 27: The value of a Philosophy degree... by wirthling 5-01-01

...but if conscious expression is bound by the limitations of language, the extrication of internal meaning by words is like attempting in vain to squeeze the last bit of toothpaste from the tube... ...or perhaps it is more apropos to liken our verbal instantiations as mere confetti left over from the parade of our essential thoughts, or maybe the conceptual monad is only true within itself... ...but others aver that the interstice between an objectified mental concept and its simplest morphemic instance may be rather infinitessimal, and this verisimilitude between -- Look, college boy - I didn't come to Starbucks for pretentious blather. Just make me a damn Caramel Macchiatto, for cryin' out loud!

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."